W7

W7

Carroll (2003) and King (2010) discuss how the “monster” is a defining feature of a horror story. Using references, explain in your own words how a monster in horror differentiates from monsters in other popular genres.

According to Carrol 1987, horror and science fiction are not really in the same genres. For them, science fiction explores in many different technologies of the theme of horror but in the horror genre is a matter of scary monsters. According to Carroll, 1987 said that ‘should not be assumed that all genres can be analysed in the same way’. She gives some example such as in Westerns; they use a monster in horror in novels, films, plays, paintings, and other works are group under the label of ‘horror’ which has monsters there to scare people. Some people can say that horror novels, stories, films, plays, and so on can be marked by the presence of monsters (Carroll, 1987). But in Carroll purpose, the monsters not just only in horror but it can be either a supernatural or a sci-fi origin.

Some of the horror in fairy stories, myths and odysseys can’t be told as a horror genre, it can be distinguished the horror genre from mere words and in other genres such as fairy tales. What is the difference between monster in horror and different genres is that rarity in horror can be a monster appear as an extraordinary character in an ordinary world. In contrast, in other genres such as fairy tales, monsters appear like a familiar creature in an incredible world. The monster in horror fiction creates some utmost significance and also disgusting to people who loves and what monster in fictions. Therefore, in the context of a horror narrative, the anomalies are identified as impure and unclean (Carroll, 1987). The art of horror is that the creator of the genre keep doing it until the audience can feel of the horror in the movie to make them feel the scare and horror of the monsters in the film. Monsters in horror make the audience’s emotional reaction is scared to the monsters in the movie. Another kind of horror in the movie is that alien, who comes from another galaxy, who can manipulate people by control or rot people’s psychology and physical. Whether these aliens can be called monsters or not, it is still horrifying in the context of fiction. And some monsters can be only threatening rather than terrifying some audiences, and some audience feels opposite way, but whether their feeling is threatening or horrifying, the movie is still thriving in a genre to make people scared of monsters in the film. The monster can be contradictory in many forms such as ghosts, zombies, vampires, mummies, the Frankenstein monster, Melmoth the Wanderer, and so on and whether they are in terms of being both living and dead.

Monster in horror can be a horror-comedy in movies such as Beetlejuice; it gets audiences laughing when some of them may be screaming (Carroll, 1999). The purpose of this movie is making audience alternative between laughing and crying throughout the duration of the film (Carroll, 1999). This genre aims to shift moods rapidly to turn horror to humour or vice verve, on time (Carroll, 1999). Horror-comedy is one of the well-known genres in the film that everyone may know and like it exists (Carroll, 1999). Vampires can seem like a monster in a horror movie, but vampires have in many different genres such as horror, comedy, or even romantic genre such as vampires fall in love with a human and protect human.

Some other popular genres turn to psychoanalysis in search of enlightenment. In some part of the genre itself invokes psychoanalytic considerations. “It’s imagery from symbolic apparatus of dream interpretation as well as allowing fictional characters to advance pseud- Freudian accounts on their own and other’s motivations. Some monster has been compulsive murders, the genre’s common presumption rooted in the psychosexual dynamics of childhood.” (Tudor, 1997). A monster can be different form in horror and popular genre. A superhero can be a monster as well in another form of transfer the characters to the audiences.

Reference:

Tudor, A. (1997). Why horror? The peculiar pleasures of a popular genre. Cultural studies, 11(3), 443-463.

Carroll, N. (1999). Horror and humor. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 57(2), 145-160.

Carroll, N. (1987). The nature of horror. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 46(1), 51-59.